


How to Win Friends and Antagonize Gunmen

by literati42



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Gil is his real father, JT and Malcolm friendship, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright Whump, Protective Gil, Protective Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-06 00:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21217493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: Malcolm really does struggle to make friends, but when he does, they are friends for life.Whumptober prompt: Gunpoint





	How to Win Friends and Antagonize Gunmen

**Author's Note:**

> There aren't enough JT and Malcolm friendship fics! So I'm adding one.
> 
> This is for the whumptober 2019 challenge by @whumptober2019 on tumblr, the prompt is "gunpoint"
> 
> As always you can follow me on twitter to talk way more about this amazing show @themythofpsyche
> 
> And for readers of my on-going story Obsession, chapter 2 is coming soon!

Malcolm was terrible at making friends, Gil mused one day as he watched the kid annoying JT in the other room. It was not a lack of desire. Malcolm was so far from the narcissistic, sociopath his father was in any way. It was not empathy he was lacking; it was social skill. Gil imagined that it was really a lack of practice.

According to Jessica—dubiously reliable though her accounts tended to be—Malcolm was a social kid before his father’s arrest. Since then, his opportunities were significantly limited. When Dr. Whitly was caught, Jessica pulled her son immediately from his private school and put him in another, but it did little to help him. The specter of the Whitly name followed him, and he went from middle of the road to social pariah. The bullying was relentless, and he went through the remainder of his childhood with one friend—Gil.

By the time he went to Harvard, he was fully out of practice. He made attempts to find his place but ultimately gave up. His few positive interactions were with professors. Then after the incident with his father, when he went to Quantico, things improved little. The people he trained with were ambitious. While Malcolm was amazing at recognizing political scheming when it came to profiling a case, he was hopeless at identifying how it affected him personally. Gil reflected on the numerous phone calls about people using Malcolm. Using him to get ahead, to benefit off his brain, or worst yet, to try and get to his father for research purposes. Ultimately, it was wiser for him to shut everyone down.

As an FBI profiler, he definitely did not make friends. He quickly got a reputation as “creepy” and “difficult.” They all decided he was exactly like his father. Gil felt his hackles raise at that. These were supposed to be psychological profilers, and they could not even tell he was inherently, fundamentally, a good person. “Even professionals get confirmation bias, Gil,” Malcolm said to him once, sighing over the phone as he talked about how yet another FBI agent wrote him up.

“You should have become a detective,” Gil said, for the millionth time.

“As if that would have fixed things?” he could practically hear Malcolm’s smile. “You think the police would be more generous?”

No, Gil thought, but I would be able to protect you.

Now that Malcolm did work with him, Gil was putting that theory to the test. It was maybe only moderately successful. Gil’s word went a long way, and because he vouched for Malcolm, the kid was offered cautious respect. That said, the officers were wary of his strange behavior. It did not help that he frequently said things like “murder is the only thing that makes me feel sane,” in the bullpen. Gil sighed. Malcolm really was terrible at making friends.

But then there was Dani and JT. They had their own hurdles getting to know the kid, but they gave him so many chances. Dani was beginning to warm to him, to trust him. JT was a whole different story, but then he always was honestly. JT was annoyed by him, made snide remarks about him, and occasionally genuinely distrusted him. Despite that, Gil knew JT was starting to view Malcolm as part of their team, and whoever JT considered his team meant a great deal to him. If the kid could just overcome that less than ideal early impression, he may yet have a real friendship there.

“Are you capable of being quiet for a single minute?” JT said, walking out of the meeting room with Malcolm behind him, looking irritated. Malcolm followed him out and glanced at the clock. Gil sighed deeply, already seeing the mistake. JT turned to stare at Malcolm, both of them just standing there. Then the clock hand changed. Malcolm had waited a full minute and not a second more.

“Okay, now, is it Justin?”

Gil rubbed the bridge of his nose. He worked with children.

“We have a lead,” Dani said, grabbing her jacket off the back of the chair. “Can we put whatever this is on hold and go get our guy?”

_-_-_

JT wondered how he kept ending up in this situation, crouched behind a shipping crate that smelled of fish guts with a batshit crazy profiler who kept, stupidly, peeking over the top to try and see the perp. JT grabbed him by the overly expensive jacket and pulled him back down. “He doesn’t know we’re here,” he said. Dani and Gil were outside, but there was no way to contact them without giving away their position to the man with a tactical assault rifle walking around just out of sight. JT swore he ended up in way less of these situations before Bright came into their lives.

The profiler, improbably, seemed to pale and tried to bury his face in his sleeve.

“What the hell is wrong with you now?” JT said.

“Fish gut smell, empty stomach, and medication is a terrible combination,” he replied.

“You better not hurl and give us away.”

“I know you’re in here, cop,” the suspect said, his voice a little too close for comfort.

“Guess he does know we’re here,” Malcolm said. He peeked again and immediately sat back down. “He’s right there.” JT gripped his gun, getting ready to fight, but Malcolm grabbed his arm.

“No, this guy is all about power. He’s an alpha. He’ll see you as a threat to his dominance. And, as far we know, he only knows someone is here. Not how many of us there are.”

“And what, you’re a beta?”

Malcolm gave him one of those inscrutable smiles. “I’m an omega.” Before JT could react, Malcolm stood. JT suppressed a curse.

Malcolm’s hands out went up, submissively. All of that cocky confidence he wore around the precinct was dropped like a jacket. His shoulders were hunched, he was no longer trying to hide the tremble in his hands. His eyes were wide and scared. He looked terrified.

He looked harmless.

“You’re no cop,” the suspect said.

“No I’m…I’m just a consultant.”

“Where are the cops?”

JT heard the gun cock, tensed his body ready to react.

“I…I came alone.” Malcolm was putting on a stutter, avoiding eye contact with the suspect.

“The hell would you do something stupid like that?”

“I…I thought I could prove myself to the team, the cops. They don’t trust me. They think I’m useless. Please…just…let me go.”

JT moved, trying to get a better view of the scene. He saw the perp moving closer, looking Malcolm up and down. He saw a glint in the man’s eyes he did not like.

“So what you’re saying is, no one knows you’re here, and you won’t be missed?”

Malcolm let out a shaky breath, “No, no, no…”

Thwack! The man struck him hard across the face with the butt of the gun, and Malcolm crumbled to the floor. The man was on him, pinning him down. Malcolm began begging, struggling. Exactly like the man’s past victims. The man started hitting him viciously.

JT was up in an instant, barreling into the man and knocking him off the profiler. He had him on the ground, subdued in a matter of moments. He heard Gil and Dani, along with back up entering the building. “Suspect down,” he shouted as he handcuffed the man. He looked over at Malcolm, the kid was no longer shaking at all. He was sitting up, a huge red welp on his face where he was smacked. His lip bleeding and his arms pressed against himself in a way that implied possible broken ribs, but he no longer looked scared or panicked.

It had all been fake.

JT realized that Malcolm had played directly into what the man wanted in a victim. He made himself weak and helpless so the man could not help but attack him, and in so doing, let his guard down.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” JT shouted.

Malcolm looked genuinely surprised, “I got us out alive.”

“You had no idea you’d get out of that alive!”

The noise and chaos of the other officers’ arrival almost wiped out Malcolm’s response, but JT could have sworn he said, “But you would have.”

Gil was there then, running to Malcolm. He checked him over while yelling for Dani to call an ambulance. “I’m okay, Gil. It’s just a few bruises,” he said. JT stood, watching him, as Gil began to shuffle him toward the door.

“You just saved my life,” JT said as they approached him. Malcolm broke into a smile, blood running down onto his teeth unnoticed.

“I did,” he said, nearly falling onto Gil, as the detective quietly said.

“Come on, kid.”

_-_-_

Gil stood in the door of the hospital room watching his kid. He spent too much damn time in hospitals. Malcolm was sporting more than a few bruises and was definitely not allowed in the field until those ribs healed up enough to avoid puncturing a lung, but he seemed fine as he ever did. Dani was there calling him an idiot for intentionally antagonizing the perp, _again. _This time, JT was there too. The man was still staring at Malcolm with the same level of annoyance as usual.

But he came to the hospital by choice.

Gil knew Malcolm was terrible at making friends, but on the rare occasions when he did, those friends were for life. Gil knew this because he was one of them, and he felt a warm pride as he realized that Dani and JT were becoming part of that rare group one case at a time.


End file.
